It takes some big balls to release your sophomore album, an album that’s stereotypically cursed, on the same day as Hip Hop legend Kanye West. But that’s exactly what Hip Hop youngin’ J Cole did. His original release date was supposed to be today; but when he learned that Kanye was dropping Yeezus on June 18, he decided to put his name in the conversation and release Born Sinner the same day.

Predictably, he didn’t outsell Kanye but he wasn’t too far off either. Yeezus sold 328k and Born Sinner came in at 31k less at 297k. Mac Miller, who’s on an independent label, came in with the third place spot with a little over 100,000 and Kelly Rowland’s Talk A Good Game sold nearly 66k.

Projections didn’t anticipate J Cole’s album doing that well; but it’s a solid piece of work and I’m sure it leaking 12 days before it was officially released didn’t hurt him too much either. It’s good stuff.

Check out the rest of the past week’s numbers in the chart below.

Looking at these figures I just couldn’t help but notice just how hard it is to sell music these days. The artist struggle is so real, even when you’re making it.

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Dani

I know I might get a lot of thumbs downs for this comment. But J.Cole album wasn’t all that to me. I was honestly pissed that I brought a 21 tracked album and only liked 3 songs. And I brought kanye’s album and its not a hip hop album to me more of a punk rock thing to me. I liked 7 out of 10 songs. I brought wale’s album yesterday and enjoyed to whole album. I was kinda skocked because wale is really and ok rapper to me.

Keema Crayola Farrow

Thanks for the input, Jcoles last album was not the business….so i would never buy another jcole album again, prefer his mixtapes,as far as kanye…heard some of it on the breakfast club and I wasnt impressed. The winner here is Mac Miller independent and sold over 100k….now thats a come up.

Dani

Yeah Mac miller album was nice also. And yes j.cole won’t be investing and his albums anymore either.

Bunnij

Now I’m waiting on wale is album dropped yesterday but good to see Kelly Mac and Jcole in the top four

Denise

I can’t believe that 328,000 people bought that garbage.

Realityh03$Anonymous….ohwait

I heard both are great, but i havent gotten either one…

Dani

Most people liked j.cole album. Kanye’s album wasn’t a hip hop album it’s more of him trying out different sounds. If you listen to wale’s music I would highly recommend you check him out. His album dropped yesterday

Realityh03$Anonymous….ohwait

I’m a love/annoy fan of Wale… I love his mixtapes n even Ambition but when it’s on rotation I want to plug my ears cause it gets wh0r3d out…

Pivyque

They are both pretty good. I prefer Cole’s album, but my brother loves Kanye’s album. He says the creativity is an art piece in itself.